


May Fourteenth

by Thoullux



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Character Death, Depression, Love, M/M, POV Second Person, Second Chances, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-11
Updated: 2013-05-11
Packaged: 2017-12-11 13:42:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/799380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thoullux/pseuds/Thoullux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tavros only got to be with his boyfriend for a year, a year spent arguing and working long hours, taking for granted the time he had with him. When Gamzee dies, Tavros's friends think he should go talk to someone about the depression that follows; and a strange doctor by the name of Maryam offers him a chance to go back and relive his last two months with the love of his life.</p><p>Happier than he's ever been from Dr. Maryam's gift of more time with Gamzee, Tavros isn't sure he ever wants to go back to the present and will do anything to make sure he doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter1: May Fourteenth

**Author's Note:**

> hey thanks for reading, and thanks to erin aka hoofbeast for helping me edit <3

They told you that seeing a doctor might help, they said that laying in bed for days wasn't normal anymore because it had been a full year and a half. It's like tragedy has an expiration date or something and people decide for you just how long you're allowed to grieve before you're considered “unwell”.

 

You've got 365 days of laying in bed and talking softly over bitter coffee to no one in your apartment and you know you've gotten better because when you started out, you were hallucinating that he still lived with you.

 

Nevertheless, you have been to a lot of doctors. You always give them the benefit of one visit, and you're fully capable of telling them what the problem is but they don't have any cures. They tell you to take this and that medicine and you thank them and put on a smile, but you never go back there and the medicine just sits in a drawer by your bed.

 

Even though you keep telling your friends that you will get over whatever this is your own way, they give you a card for a doctor you haven't been to yet. As always, you oblige them and now you've got a doctors appointment; not the lollipop at the end of the visit granting doctor, the kind that you put on sweatpants and ride silently in the car with someone to go see. A certain kind of doctor's visit where you and them keep clearing your throats in the car and the sky is grey because it's not a good day and you haven't met any good days in a long time.

 

The building that Doctor Maryam's office is located is a small grey building tucked in between two warehouses on east 68th street, and you're positive you've passed by it a million times and never noticed it. You look up at the building for a minute and then duck inside, expecting the dreaded psychiatric clinic waiting room coldness and looking away from everyone awkwardly, but instead when you walk in the room is empty. You walk up to the desk and they tell you she'll see you right away.

 

 

 

Dr. Maryam's office is bigger than the front part of the building and decorated with a kind of elegance you weren't expecting for this side of town and such a shabby looking building. You sit down in the cracked leather chair in front of her desk and wait for her to come in. You tap your foot, pick at the stuffing coming out of the arm of the chair, touch stuff on her desk even though you shouldn't and after a moment she strides in.

 

 

 

She's tall and very slender with short black hair, wearing a short black dress, and a long doctor's coat with her name tag on it. When she sits down in front of you, you think she's pretty with her pale skin and dark makeup. She's like no doctor you've ever been to before. You hope your friends haven't inadvertently sent you to some place where they do lobotomies with a spoon for five dollars.

 

“Let me just look over your paperwork to make sure everything checks out and then we can get started okay?” She smiles and start flipping through the pages that you had filled out a week ago that had come in the mail.

 

"All right, let's begin.” She tucks the papers away and waits for you to start talking.

 

“What am I supposed to say...exactly?” You usually tell them the gist of everything in big spiel but it's not coming out today like it usually does.

 

“Whatever you want, tell me what happened or tell me what you had for breakfast one day together. It doesn't matter where you begin.” She reassures you and you stare down at the floor while you think.

 

 

 

“I want to start on May fourteenth, because when I woke up it smelled like something was burning in the apartment...” You begin. You tell her all about the first day that Gamzee slept over at your house, you tell her all about his almost burning your kitchen down trying to make food, but before you can tell her much more she stops you.

 

“So, do you want to start on that day or do you have another one in mind?” She raises an eyebrow ready to write down your answer.

 

“What do you mean?” You look up and meet her gaze.

“You don't seem to know why you're here, do you Tavros?”

“No.” You admit.

 

“Then why did you come?” She smirks and folds her hands in front of her on the desk.

 

“Because everyone wanted me to, they think something's wrong with me because I don't want to do anything anymore. Except, I never wanted to do anything before, either. I was okay with doing nothing with Gamzee forever.”

 

She nods a bit and opens her drawer to pull out some keys.

 

“You know, a lot of people come here when they lose someone. I've been doing this for a long time now and I can honestly say, I never thought anything was wrong with any of them. They were missing someone. If that makes them crazy then we all are, right?”

 

You nod, no one's ever said something so true to you before. You think she understands who you are now and you're not afraid to be here.

 

“Most people who come here think that if they could just have one more day or go back to be with that person they lost, they would be okay afterward. For some of them, a little more time would make all the difference in moving on.”

 

“Yeah, if only.” You laugh awkwardly and pick at the holes in her couch nervously.

 

“Would you? I mean, if you could have more time to go back and select memories and be with that person, would you want the time?” Her smile seems to turn mischievous right before your eyes.

 

“Of course, but who wouldn't?” You shrug and she stands up, grabbing the keys and putting them in the pocket of her coat.

 

“I think I know what could help you, come on.” She opens the door and holds it open for you. You contemplate bolting for the main exit once you walk out into the hallway but you don't really think she would hurt you no matter how shady this place is, right?

 

You follow her down the short hallway to an exit, and focusing in the center of her back you decide that you don't care if she's leading you to your death, because you stopped having anything to fight for a long time ago.

 

If this will help everyone stop looking at you like that, you'll do anything. You know the look, the kind of look people have on ntheir faces after bad accidents, and there are blue and red lights coloring their eyes and clothes splattered with your blood. Yes, that look.

 

Dr. Maryam leads you outside and over to a door that you know is the warehouse next door to it. She just might be taking you in here to steal your kidney, who knows. There's no turning back now.

 

Before she opens the door, she turns to you and puts her hand on your shoulder.

 

“Tavros, you have the time now okay? The time you said you would want if you could have it. All you have to do is walk through this door but... you have to understand that you can't change any of it okay? If you try to change the outcome, it'll just keep taking you back to the first day of your memories until you get to the end again. You understand don't you? That you have to let him die at the end right?”

 

You nod, and suddenly you feel like crying because you think this is a sick joke your friends have set you up on because that is something some of them would do. You think when you go through the door, there'll be someone to throw something in your face or say “gotcha!” like they have done to you before on birthdays and just random pranks.

 

“Just remember, this is for healing okay?” She unlocks the door and shoves you inside and you fall forward into darkness.

 

 

After a minute you can feel something soft under your head and you open your eyes facing your wall. You feel the softness of your bed sheets and grimace at the amount of sunlight streaming in through your window. You suppose you either stayed up too late watching too much TV and that was a dream, or you got knocked out by that weird doctor and your friends came to get you and put you in bed.

 

You move the covers around trying to get up. Okay... your friends put you naked in bed, that's just... not strange at all.

 

You reach over the side of the bed for your underwear and pull them on, stumbling to your dresser to look at yourself in the mirror. Well, you seem to still have your kidney, that's an upside. On the downside, you don't think you'll be seeing any more doctors again for a long, long time.

 

Wiping at your eyes and pulling on a shirt from the top drawer, you take a quick glance at the calendar and immediately look again when you see the year. It's last year's date. Oh, maybe you just hadn't gotten a new calendar in a while, that's completely normal. In your apartment, there are a lot of things you haven't moved since last year and that's expected since you haven't been doing much either.

 

A scraping sound echoes from down the hall and you jump, grabbing your lamp. In this part of town you expected break ins, but damn it. You really don't need this on top of everything else. You're just getting back on your feet, you got taken to a warehouse and hit over the head by Doctor Strangelove, and now someone's robbing you.

 

Gripping the lamp tightly, you inch down the hallway and the closer you get to the kitchen, the louder the scraping becomes and there's smoke in the hallway making the smoke alarm go off.

 

When you hop out in front of the doorway, you stumble back in shock with your back against the wall.

 

It's official, you're really losing it now, because what you think you're seeing is Gamzee attempting to cook you breakfast and he's burning down your kitchen and swatting at the fire alarm all at the same time.

 

You want to scream, like this is some sick joke created by someone who wants you to lose the last bit of sanity you own.

 

He turns around with a plate of something black and smoking that you can only gather is eggs.

 

“Hey, you're awake. I made breakfast." He beams at you and pull your knees up to your chest and appreciate his voice and the way the sunlight is playing and dancing in his hair through the open window. You take a few deep breaths while you wait for it to disappear like the hallucination it is.

 

When you don't move, he pauses and looks back over at you.

 

“Tav, you okay?” You nod and make your wobbly newborn colt legs find their way over to your table.

 

Once he sits down across from you and smiles, you remember this day. This is May fourteenth, of last year. The first day that Gamzee slept over at your house and made you breakfast because this was the day he had decided on you. For months you both had been skirting around what to call your relationship, and this was the first day you didn't wake up alone in your bed with a note by your pillow that said 'have a good day, see you later.'

 

Everything Dr. Maryam had said was starting to make sense. She asked you if you wanted the time to go back and be with him for just a little while, and you had said yes. But... this couldn't be for real, she's just a psychiatrist. You smile as you watch him spill jelly on the table like he will do every morning after this to your dismay, except this time you will revel in the chance to put your term paper down on that spot only to have it rip when you try to pick it up and yell at him at the top of your lungs.

 

If this is real, you will revel in his attempts to tape it back together later and fall in love with him the morning after, when you wake up to find he's stayed up all night recopying it by hand. Yes, and you'll bask in the scream of frustration he'll give when you tell him all he had to do was print it out again at the library downtown for a few cents.

 

“Tav, you're gonna be late.” He hands you a glass of orange juice and you take a wobbly sip trying to keep your head on straight. You don't want to go to work, you want to throw your arms around him and tell him to lock himself in the apartment with you so he will never leave and you would never have to know what the apartment sounds like when he's not in it.

 

Your hand shakes and you spill the orange juice on the table, and he jumps up before it spills in his lap.

 

“Sorry.” You try to find something to clean it, but he just laughs and wipes it up for you.

 

“It's all good bro, go ahead and get in the shower before you're late.”

 

You nod and get up, dreading taking your eyes off of him for even a moment because you fear this will all go away if you do.

 

 

 

You make your way down the hall and start shuffling through your clothes with blurry vision and you don’t care what clothes you wear because you remember all of this and you didn’t know how much it could hurt the second time around.

 

Grabbing your clothes you get inside the shower with the clothes you slept in still on, and sit there hoping the hot water wakes you up. You hear the dishes clinking in the sink, and dry, hyperventalative sobs start up in your chest as you pray this all away. You're positive you must be losing it and even if you aren't seeing him again, knowing how it has to end is too much, even for you.

 

“I'm gone, okay Tav? Have a good day!” You hear him call and the door close behind and that's when you lean your head against the shower wall and stop caring how your soaked clothes are weighing you down, along with the force of your crying.

 

After a moment, you hear the bathroom door creak and you look up at him staring down at you. You cover your eyes and sigh for him to go away.

 

He takes his shoes off and climbs in the tub with you with his clothes on too and cups your face in his palms and starts kissing your forehead and your temples.

 

“I'll stay with you.” He whispers and pulls your shirt up over your head and puts it on the towel rack just above your heads. He turns you around so your back is pressed up against his chest and he starts washing your hair. The soothing feeling of his fingers running through your tangled curls makes you close your eyes, and even though every hot steamy breath you take makes you feel as if you can't breathe, you know you're going to be alright.

 

This did not happen on May fourteenth the first time around, and you're not sure if it was sitting down in the hallway before breakfast in shock, or spilling the orange juice that caused it to change, but you're glad it did because this is ten times better and you never want to wake up.


	2. Chapter 2:  June Sixth

Do you remember cooking pasta at midnight in your kitchen, and he managed to get sauce in your hair? Do you remember buying body paint to play hide and seek in the apartment under a blacklight, and the sound of your screams of laughter when his hands would snake out of a closet and grab you from behind? No, because these are the new memories you're building together, not old ones. You have remembered no collarbones left unkissed. You've remembered how to laugh and done so more in two weeks than you have ever before.

 

You're rewriting your whole last two months together and you're not caring about anything anymore. Your friends used to barely come over, but now you've got them dancing in your living room with confetti in their hair and eyes; drinking more for celebration than to get drunk. They like you so much more when you're falling over with laughter instead of avoiding their calls. Who knew?

 

On just an ordinary day you woke up before him and watched him sleep in the wee hours of the morning. You brushed his thick, rough curls with your palms and kissed his cheek, trying to absorb him somehow so even when he was gone you could still taste him, still feel him.

 

You don't bother going to work, or doing anything that isn't about making love. Making love through laughter, dancing, and music. You know that it could all disappear at any moment, and you aren't going to take those kinds of chances anymore.

 

You wander into the kitchen and start trying to look for the pictures you both took last year after he met your parents. You want to hide them so that when he dies and you go on your rampage, you can't find them and tear them up. It's your biggest regret thus far.

 

You rifle through the drawers, but they're not there. The more you look in fact, you can't find any of the old pictures that used to grace the apartment, just the new ones you've taken. You start to panic, tearing the kitchen and living room up looking for those photos. They're all you will have left at the end of this.

 

You walk back to your room and slip on your clothes, scribbling him a note that you'll be right back. You jog down the street until you find the place that Dr. Maryam's office should be, but you don’t know if she'll remember you or if it will even be there. You have to try anyway.

 

You sigh in relief when you see the gloomy grey building and rush inside, noticing this time the waiting room is full. You run up to the desk and the lady at the front tells you you'll have to wait, but you can't wait because your most valuable possessions are disappearing. When you get to her door, she's escorting a patient out and before you can open your mouth to explain anything to her she says “In a minute Tavros,” and you watch her lead an old woman down the hallway towards the warehouse. For a moment, a chill goes through you and you wonder if you went in there you would see your body on the floor.

 

When she returns, you go right in to her office and have a seat and she sits; just like the first time you came into her office.

 

“What's wrong?” She says folding her arms and giving you a smile.

 

“All my pictures of me and Gamzee... some of our stuff is disappearing.” You blurt out.

 

“Well you know Tavros, if you never go do those things with Gamzee, they will never happen. If you want those things, then you have to follow the sequence of events that led you to acquire them.” She shrugs, matter of factly.

 

“Some of those pictures were taken...on days where we fought horribly, some of the videos even, were on days we weren't speaking. I cant go through those fights... again.” You sink down in the chair.

 

“You wanted to spend time with Gamzee right? Well, there are some parts of your relationship that have to happen in order for everything to end the way its supposed to. Not going in order could make his death happen a lot sooner than it was supposed to. You've had fun right? Just go to the next memory and go from there, I'll put the pictures back.” She nods and you take a deep breath.

 

You don't want to go to the next memory, the only big memory that comes after May fourteenth is June sixth and you dread that day with all of your being.

 

She stands up and puts her hand on your shoulder, and when you open your eyes again you're on the corner outside of your job, clutching your bag and grimacing because your friends forgot to pick you up like they said they would. You think that's because you went back to not having time for them like it originally happened. Because of work and complications with Gamzee; undoing all that bonding you spent the last bit of May building with them. You start walking aimlessly down the streetlight lit sidewalk towards your apartment building.

 

You know what's ahead, and you keep your eyes on the concrete because you don't want to see it. But nevertheless when you look up there, Gamzee is smiling at you with his arms outstretched in front of that hellish car that he decided to buy on this day. He bought it because you had decided to move in together, and he didn't want you walking home in the dark anymore.

 

“What do you think?” He smiles at you and you pretend to be surprised, letting him ramble on to you about the details of the car as you walk up the stairs and inside. You cling to his hands and even though you're getting wet around the eyes, you put on a good show long enough to get into the bedroom alone and take a few deep breaths. This is too hard, this is the day you could change everything. If there was any point in the timeline that would have made the difference, it's today.

 

After a few moments of sitting on the bed in the dark, you realize you've been undoing your tie for about five minutes and he's watching you from the door. He's been trying not to hint that when you're with him you laugh the loudest, but when you're not looking he can see the sadness spilling out of you at the seams.

 

When you look up, he crosses the room and sits down next to you, bumping into you until you slide over; but that only makes you smile for a moment.

 

“Is it the car? You know it might be a little hard, but we can afford the motherfucker. So if that's it, don’t worry about that.” He nudges your shoulder but you keep looking down.

 

“I know we can, it's not that, its's...can I tell you something?” You don't care, its eating you up inside that this is your chance to save his life and you're not going to waste it.

 

For the next hour or two you explain to him the story of how on this day he bought a car; and two weeks from this day he's going to get in that car for whatever reason before you wake up and go down 156th, where a driver is going to underestimate the distance between the merge and Gamzee's damned purple car and sweep him clean off the road. You explain to him through ragged breaths and quick panicked sobs that you're going to get a phone call very early in the morning on a Tuesday that your lover's beautiful body is crushed under his car. You will take this call, and you will show up at the scene and see your lover's blood on the road for everyone to see.

 

You cannot express to him how sick it made you to see his blood on the road and have people walk over it while cleaning up the wreckage like it was nothing.

 

He doesn't say anything for a long time after you finish telling him, you even tell him about Dr. Maryam. After a moment he hugs you and says “Tav, everything's gonna be fine, don’t all up and worry about nothing. Dreams like that sometimes seem--"

 

And after that there's nothing. You don’t hear him complete his sentence and when you come to, you're laying down on the bed in your work clothes still. You think you must have passed out from the stress and how tired you are, so you sit up thinking he must have gone into the kitchen.

 

“Gamzee?” You call for him but you don't hear anything.

 

“Gamzee, are you in there?”

Silence.

 

Your heart starts pounding hard in your chest and you scramble to get up, but your legs feel wobbly just like the first day on May fourteenth. As you make your way to the kitchen holding on to the walls for support, you keep calling him but hear no response. You go to every room searching for his things but they aren't there, none of his stuff is there and you start screaming, the walls start to shake and you pull your knees to your chest thinking that this feels worse than dying.

 

When you open your eyes again, you're sitting in that position in your bathroom, in your underwear. You hear your bedroom door creak and footsteps approaching only to see Gamzee smiling down at you.

 

“Hey, didn’t you hear me calling you? I made breakfast.” He beams down at you and you smile up at him wearily. As he helps you to the breakfast table you catch the day's date on the calender by your dresser.

 

_May Fourteenth._


	3. The fear of succeeding

Doctors in the past have told you that going to sleep at a decent hour will help you stop being sad all the time and you thought there was something to that because you used to find yourself awake at 3am staring at Gamzee's pictures telling him all about your day and the things he wasnt doing because he wouldn't come home. And now you've forcefully held him in bed with you in this time loop like holding someone's head underwater but instead of breathing in the ocean they're breathing you in. you've got enough time now to last you a lifetime so all the time you spend sleeping is time you don’t spend talking to him and that's something you can't risk.

 

You see you've lived through about sixteen May Fourteenth's now and you have to admit you're getting slightly tired of the blaring smoke alarm and the runny eggs every two months when you reset the cycle but you're not ready. You see you have a theory that if you keep doing this soon enough you;ll have lived a lifetime with him.

 

If given the chance your months with Gamzee will equal a year and then two, three even and you will never get old and you will never die. In a perfect world, which this time loop is you can have anything you want and none of it matters because at the end of the two months all you have to do is make sure Gamzee never reaches the middle of June and nobody gets hurt.

 

Today, you've built sand castles by the water and you've kissed and ridden waves worthy of their own stories. He isn't that talkative but he says he can build better sand castles than anyone on earth and you believe him.

 

You can't remember for the life of you why you both never actually did any of this the first time around.What were you so busy doing that you never took that roadtrip he suggested to all your friends? What was more important than watching the expression of joy on his face when you ran around the roof with sparklers just because it was a wednesday?

 

And now that so much time has passed in the memory loop you think maybe you were just fighting or working; things that don’t matter.

 

It doesn't matter now, you're starting to smile again and you're hearing your laugh again for the first time in a long time.

 

In the morning when you wake up, you expect it to be June sixth again, the day Gamzee bought the car which you fully expect but instead when you wake up, he's gone and there's a note scribbled by your bed that he'll be right back.

 

Initially you don't think much of it, you walk to the kitchen and sit down at the table staring out at nothing but then it hits you, it hits you all at once with bare feet and sensitive 6am hearing, the phone ring. You freeze up, you havent felt like this in a long time. For awhile after Gamzee's death you used to flinch at the sound of the phone ring because it reminded you of the one you got calling you down to the crash site. But the more you thought about it there was no longer a reason to be afraid of the phone beause you knew that the worst possible thing had already happened so there was nothing they could tell you could be worse than that day.

 

Nevertheless you pick up the phone expecting it to be your friends telling you something funny or what they got up to last night but instead you hear

 

“Is this Tavros Nitram?”

 

“Yes?”  
  


“ I'm sorry there's been an accident...”

 

“It's not today, that didn't happen today!” You yell and throw the phone on the table.

 

With your heart racing you run into your bedroom to find the number to Dr. Maryam's office, the card is taped to the mirror and you dial her frantically, misdialing several times before hearing the ring on the other line.

 

“Tavros..” She says in a stern motherly way like when a child does something bad.

 

“The accident didn’t happen today, its supposed to happen two weeks from now, I can't, I can't go down there...” Your hands are shaking as you try to get dressed at the same time to get down to her office and make her change it.

 

“Why can't you? You've seen what's at the end of the rainbow before right? So why can't you see it twice? Did you not live through the same May fourteenths and were you tired of his voice in the morning?”

 

You don’t have any answers, sure you've seen him dead before, and you've lived through many days but this is one you can't trump.

 

“You know I won't go don't you? You know I refuse look at the light gone from his eyes _don't you_?!” You scream.

 

“So, you're going to leave him down there alone? Gamzee deserves for no one to come be with him while he's laying on that road is that what you're saying?” She raises her voice an octave.

 

She's right; he doesn't deserve it and you're tired of fighting it.

 

“I'll go.” You whisper

 

“You can do it?” She sounds a bit skeptical.

 

“I can.” You nod and let the phone slip out of your hand.

 

In the mirror you get dressed, neatly buttoning up your shirt and combing your hair. You leave a long note for your friends incase they show up looking for you both.

 

You could drive to the site, but you can barely walk so you wander aimlessly down the street until you get to the sound of sirens and blue and red lights flashing and splashing in the reflection of your glasses.

 

You walk right up to the mangled piece of purple hell car, and you lean down to touch his blood on the road. When they bring you over to him, you won't move until they agree to let you see him right then and there and suddenly they think they don't have the right to stop you.

 

They pull back the sheet, and there's your boy, the one with the big shiny eyes and smile that's comparable to nothing else but pure brilliance.

 

You feel your insides turn to liquid at the sight of his bruised and swollen face and you lean down to kiss his cheek because you have done everything you can and you still lost him. Because you kept skipping the week that Gamzee died his death moved up a few weeks so it would happen just the way it was supposed to, and subconsciously you knew it would because time couldn't wait on you forever could it?

 

After the police talk to you for a few minutes you wave your grieving friends and his family away from you and start walking away from the screams of the cars and the people.

 

You used to think any place could be magic if you wished for it hard enough, you thought if peter pan could never had to grow up and the magic would never die there that some how all your hoping would make it true for you here.But you're not Peter Pan.

 

There is a bridge close to your father's house that used to link the broken pieces of your family from the city he lived to the city where you and your mother lived; a bridge that brought Gamzee from one city to your city and closer to you. You run your fingers along the rusty railing of the bridge, it's effortless for you to pull yourself up to stand on it.

 

You used to think flying was impossible, and that fear was monster's under beds but fear is waking up alone and screaming on the inside but smiling on the outside. Fear is being afraid of yourself when you lose control but at the same time liking your madness.

 

They forced you to let go of Gamzee, and you did and now you're forcing them to let go of you. Yeah you could recite a lot of the stuff you learned in therapy to yourself but you're not looking to be saved here you're done with disapointments entirely.

 

“Gamzee, I can live through a million May fourteenth's with you, and I can put just the right water to sand ration together to support your sand castles but I can't be alone. You're a bastard for dying, you hear me? you're a bastard for not waiting for me to wake up so I could go with you. And I love you...” You lower your head a little “...endlessly in fact.”

 

 

If someone had asked you two years ago where you thought you would be two years from then you're sure you would have jokingly said still working at the coffee shop, if only things were still that simple.

 

It's easy for your first foot to slip off the railing, its easier still for you to lean forward and leave solid ground. The hard part if anything is the feeling going down where your breath catches in your throat and for a split second you're scared.

 

Fear is a funny thing because even though you are scared you can't wait to find the bottom. Your head is cradled by jagged rocks and your body is learning the language of mangled bones and bleeding; fluent even in the body language of a dying boy.

 

Waves, waves wonderful enough to have their own story are crashing into your mangled body and who knew it felt just as good riding on top of them as being pulled under them into a water coffin.

 

 

 

 

_May twenty first._

 

 

 


	4. August Fifth

You're awakened by the sound of soft crying and someone's hand on your shoulder. You wipe your eyes before opening them preparing yourself for blinding sun and just as you thought, you're back in your bed. When you look up Dr. Maryam is sitting at the end of the bed with her head in her hands you're not sure what to say so you sit up and put your hand on her hand.

 

Your touch startles her and she jumps, wiping stray tears from her face and looking confused as if she's not sure why you're there.

 

“You little bastard” She says in relief and reaches over to pull you into a hug.

 

You don't say anything, but hug her back and you want to apoligize but you're not sure what for.

 

“What's wrong?” You look around, it seems like it's May fourteenth but something is off about the room.

 

She pulls out of the hug and glares at you.

 

“You died is what happened, you died and I lost you in the veil and couldn't figure out how to bring you back. So I went searching through your memories to see if you would show up again in one of them but you didn’t, not for a whole month until now. Don’t you know how worried I was you brat?” She smacks your arm and you flinch and can't help but smile a little at how worked up she is.

 

“I'm sorry, kind of.” You murmur and pull the covers up to your chin.

 

“Tavros, no ones ever died while doing this before, not on my watch anyway. You do understand that you could've been trapped anywhere in this time lapse forever and I never would have been able to bring you back. That's why I was crying because eventually your family would have come asking me where you were and what would I have told them? Sorry your son killed himself while in my care and now I also don't know where his body is.”

 

“So how did I get back here then?” You wonder aloud.

 

“I don't know but you broke the time loop, you're in your house sure but nothing's the same. You are actually dead you know, the you that's here right now I guess is a version of yourself from one of your memories.”

 

“Is Gamzee..?”

 

“He's still dead Tavros, he died and then you died and it brought you back to a random day but it didn’t bring him back. He's gone. I'm sorry.” She lowers her head apoligetically.

 

You thought you had it all figured out, you were planning the years that you could live here with him young forever but now you have nothing because you abused the system. You're at the end of your treatment now, beause she told you in the beginning you had to let him die and afterward you would go back home because you would be healed.

 

But you aren't, you aren't healed you got to live an amazing life with Gamzee one that probably lasted longer than you both would have lasted in real life. And all the days that you woke up next to him were sacred and lucky but you've used them all up now and you didn’t even really get to say goodbye; _again_.

 

“Tavros, we have to leave here soon, don't you know?” She turns back to you at her place in front of the mirror.

 

“Just give me a few more minutes okay?” She nods and walks out of the door and shutting the apartment door behind her. Once you hear the door latch you move over to his side of the bed and bury your face in his pillow smelling his hair again and crying beause you're hurt worse than you were the first time around that you lost him.

 

The point of all this was supposed to be that you got to have more time with the person you loved and so that at the end when they died you were supposed to be grateful that you at least had time with them and then go back to your regular life a happier person. It's probably a flawless system for Dr. Maryam's other patients but you're not grateful; you're selfish. You want all the happiness and no consequences or anyone to answer to.

 

You grip his pillow tighter and start sobbing into it until your throat hurts and your eyes are sore from rubbing against the stiff cotton pillowcase.

 

When you've pulled yourself together enough you put your clothes on and stand in the doorway of the bathroom, remembering that first day after you told him the truth and how looking up and seeing his crooked grin beaming down at you was the closest to heaven you'll ever get.

 

You gather up all your pictures and videos into a box and head down the hallway and stand in the doorway of the kitchen; the one you let him almost burn down a million times because you love him. The kitchen you drank too much in and sat on the counters making out because you didn’t have any fear that tommorow would ever be taken away from you.

 

The living room, the living room where your friends danced and laughed with you until early in the morning and you would wake up and look around where they were all sleeping in one big pile on your floor and on your couch knowing that there was nothing greater than the sound of their soft snores at 4am with confetti in your hair.

 

You take one last look at the apartment in it's unaffected glory and reach for the door. You step outside and lock it giving a shrug to Dr. Maryam to let her know that you're ready.

 

“I'm not one for goodbyes, terrible at them actually. So...you ready?”

 

You nod, but hesistate thinking you should at least ask her. “I know that I messed a lot of things up but could I ask for one more thing?”

 

She thinks about it for a moment and nods.

 

You explain to her that there was a day in the winter when you first met Gamzee that was the beginning of you, and you think that if that day never happens you can both be happy beause if you never meet him you'll never lose him and if never meets you, he'll never die.

 

 

 

She nods and puts her hand on your shoulder and you fully expet to wake up in the warehouse where she had taken you many months ago but instead you wake up in your bed just like before. You notice the box of things you brought with you is nowhere to be seen and there is barely any furniture because you assume it's because she took you back to when you just moved into the apartment.

 

You have to admit your heart hurts a lot; making the decision to undo your entire relationship just so no one else in his life had to lose him was a big thing to do. You mourn him silently while wrapped up in your sheets and to make it worse his pillow doesnt smell like him and his scent is nowhere in the air.

 

After a moment you hear the door open and close and footsteps coming down the hall, you immediately think it could be any one of your friends because back then they had a key to your apartment incase you ever forgot yours which you did often.

 

You hear someone sigh and the clink of keys get dropped in the dish on the table in the hallway. You keep your back turned to them promising yourself that you won't sulk here the entire day just for a little while, just until it doesnt hurt as much.

 

You hear the door creak and in one leap someone heavy pounces on top of you and you turn over trying to move under the big stranger and you look up into your lovers eyes.

 

“Hey sleepyhead, you gonna lay here all day or we going to get going?” He laughs and you don't know how to start talking; this isnt what you discussed with Dr. Maryam.

 

“Come _on._ ” He kisses your forehead and gets up. When you still don't move he starts pulling you out of bed by your leg.

 

“Where are we going?” You look around noticing the boxes in the far corner fo your room for the first time.

 

“Today's moving day, were moving your stuff into my place, you've been looking forward to it all week remember?” His shoulders slump.

 

This never happened, you had discussed moving into his place once but all of this is new.

 

“Oh, yeah I know, I mean what day is it?”

 

“August fifth, why?” He laughs.

 

You never made it to August, this isn't a time loop memory; this isn't any memory you've ever had

 

“No reason, let me get my pants.” You hurry up and get dressed and he shakes his head at you.

 

“I'll start taking the boxes to the car.” Your heart freezes as he heads down the hallway at the thought of the car.

 

You wait until you hear him go out of the door to scramble to the kitchen and look out of the window to the sidewalk below and there it is, the purple hell car in tact and loading your whole life together up inside it.

 

He looks up at you and waves you down, he's so excited and even though there's a pit in your stomach that wont let you fully trust this new surrounding you manage to grin back at him.

 

 

You start carrying the boxes and notice that one of them is the box you brought away from the time loop. All your pictures and memories are still in tact and you think to call Dr. Maryam but you don’t find her card anywhere and you're sure that this is the way she wanted it.

 

Aftter a little while you both have loaded, well more like overloaded the car with all of your things and he opens the door waiting for you to get inside. You take one more look up at your apartment and in the window you see Dr. Maryam in the window peering down at you.

 

You wave, and she puts her hand up to the window before turning and disappearing from sight.

 

“Who you waving at?” Gamzee says looking up where you are and you just shake your head.

 

“No one, waving goodbye to my memories I guess.” You shrug half heartedly. You know that she gave you a second chance; one you didn’t deserve maybe because she wanted you out of her hair, maybe because she cares about you but either way you're grateful for real this time.

 

“You'll make new ones, let's go.” You look back up at the window one more time but she isnt there and you climb in the front seat fully aware that this could all go wrong at any moment, but you don’t care.

 

Either way you'll be together right?

 

Balancing a box on your lap you pull away from the curb and start gliding through traffic.

 

There'll be time now, time to do all the stuff you use to do and even more, you'll fight and you'll make up, you'll make love and break shit too and more importantly you wont waste that time.

 

You wont take anything too seriously or worry about what will happen in the future because as far as you know, there's only the here and now.

 

Ahead you can see the bridge, linking your old life to your new one and your hearts beating hard remembering the way you jumped from the bridge or the way that this car gives you the creeps because you're not use to seeing it in one piece. As you begin to cross it you start to panic a little but he puts his hand in yours and gives it a squeeze and you squeeze back.

 

So you came out the other end, and you're wet around the eyes and raw around the heart but you'd do it all again if it meant waking up to the sound of the smoke alarm on a hot day in May.

 

 


End file.
